Teaching: What I have been trying to communicate to my students in the past several years, has been, so eloquently, articulated by Steve Jobs. "Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact; and that is, everything around you, that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it. You can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you will never be the same again."

Research: The challenge of solving complex problems
through developing novel tools and methodologies.
The intrigue of developing the next killer application for the industry that would make our practices more efficient, and
that can enable us to better understand the complexities of nature, thousands of feet underground.
Research and development are an integrated part of university's mission.

Since 1991, I have concentrated on the application of intelligent systems (neural networks, genetic algorithms,
and fuzzy logic) in petroleum engineering. Dealing with nature's complexity and non-linearity requires us to
think outside of the box and not to be reluctant to utilize new techniques.

It certainly took a while, but it seems that our industry is finally embracing this exciting technology.
Starting with simple neural network applications, we now use hybrid systems to perform data mining, knowledge
discovery and data-knowledge fusion tasks for the oil and gas industry. This is the technology that will
finally realize the promises of smart fields.

Service: Reviewing technical papers for the journals, serving in national and international professional
committees, teaching short courses to industry professionals, also, serving in the departmental,
college, and university committees, and providing consulting services to the industry.
That pretty much sums it all up.